The Political Landscape:

U.S. rep. decks halls in style

Final tallies of campaign fundraising for 2007 show U.S. Rep. John Campbell is raking in the dough.

February 14, 2008|By Brianna Bailey and Chris Caesar

Final tallies of campaign fundraising for 2007 show U.S. Rep. John Campbell is raking in the dough while Democratic challenger Steve Young is running his campaign on a shoestring budget, according to Federal Election Commission documents.

Young raised $26,670 last year, all from individual donors. Campbell amassed more than $570,614, including $186,000 from political action committees representing everything from the banking industry to beer wholesalers.

Young spent $27,685 last year, much of it on political ads, polling and those charming robotic phone calls everyone loves so much. Campbell’s camp spent $206,121 in operating expenses last year. Expenditures include thousands for catering and airfare, $1,900 for Christmas ornaments and $1,170 for wine.

Advertisement

CURRY REBUKES BERKELEY COUNCIL

Newport Beach City Councilman Keith Curry had cheers for local patriotism and jeers for Berkeley’s city council Tuesday.

Curry announced at the City Council meeting that fundraising was almost complete for a city-sponsored memorial for the First Batallion, First Marines, and scolded Newport’s neighbor to the north for its anti-Marine stance.

“I can’t think of more defined contrast of how the Marines are being treated in our city and how they are being treated in Berkeley,” the councilman said.

The Berkeley City Council Wednesday reversed an earlier decision to notify a Marine recruiting station that recruiters were no longer welcome in the city. The decision sparked heated protests in Berkeley and national outrage.

Newport Beach adopted the First Battalion, First Marines in 2003. The company is on its third deployment to Iraq since the city adoption.

The city plans to unveil a memorial statue dedicated to the battalion on Memorial Day in Castaways Park.

CAMPBELL STANDS BY BILL

Meanwhile, Campbell isn’t rescinding a bill that would cut nearly $2 million in earmarks to Berkeley, despite the city council’s reversal of a resolution that referred to a Marine Corps recruitment center in the city as “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.”

The original resolution encouraged “all people to avoid cooperation with the Marine Corps recruiting station,” and applauded those who “may volunteer to impede, passively or actively, by nonviolent means, the work of any military recruiting office located in the city of Berkeley.”